US Government Bans Professor for Mining Bitcoin with A Supercomputer

[row5_seat47]

The NSF or National Science Foundation Office of the Inspector General (OIG) just posted on their website their March 2014 Semiannual Report to Congress (PDF with metadata create date of 5/27). This report contains a write-up on an “Administrative Investigation” by the OIG entitled “Government-wide Suspension Recommended for Researcher Who Used NSF-Funded Supercomputers to Mine Bitcoins” (full extract at bottom).

Via

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/13774/government-bans-professor-mining-bitcoin-superc

[Ejaculation]

Why did I laugh so hard at this?

[dank]

Because the government owns so many their self.  Wouldn't be surprised if they create it.  Either way bitcoin is run by greedy tyrants who do not value free speech.

[Benjig]

But they say that the current mining power is 52,000 times over the mightiest super computer (seqouia) , so the proffesor was able to mine only 0.06 every day with that super computer, not a good move.

[frankenmint]

Because the government owns so many their self.  Wouldn't be surprised if they create it.  Either way bitcoin is run by greedy tyrants who do not value free speech.

I LOL'ed from this one, in concurrence - "we can't MINE btc, WE CAN'T!!!!!! It sets the tone that we consider BTC creation as legitimate as USD printing"

[Skycraft]

Indeed I believe is pretty funny also

[jc01480]

Breach of trust.  Go figure.  That's the catch all.

[franky1]

Breach of trust.  Go figure.  That's the catch all.

+1

if your job was to look into genes, and they found out you were playing farmville, looking at porn or mining while using the agencies systems, expect to get sacked.

although this is old news (about 2 years now) its not about banning bitcoins, the news is about a guy that was not doing his job and costing the agency money by wasting electric on non contractual purposes.

im not even sure why coindesk is bumping old news but i am sure of why the OP wanted to twist the words in such a way..the OP is obviously a tin foil hat wearing, government hating conspiracy theorist that thinks that its a ploy against bitcoin..

.. moving on

[Cranky4u]

add this to the long list of IT Sys Admins whom have been busted. In Australia, the natioanl TV broadcaster (the ABC) sacked one of their head IT Sys Admins for using the networks down time to mine BTC. Makes me wonder how many go undetected 

[beetcoin]

Why did I laugh so hard at this?

i was thinking the same. probably because professors are looked at as esteemed people, and the guy who did this is just LOL.

[DeeBo]

The researcher misused over $150,000 in NSF-supported computer usage at two universities to generate bitcoins valued between $8,000 and $10,000.

I'm skeptical both that they claim it used $150k in electricity and that it was able to mine that much bitcoin.  Most supercomputers are just a lot of standard CPUs.  Even if it had GPUs in there (like Nvidia Tesla which is used in some supercomputers) I would think the hashrate would still be significantly lower than a couple ASIC miners (and well below the quoted $8-$10k over 6 days.

[ashleysly]

Hmm, can't find the hashing power for the supercomputer, anyone have an idea?

Im sure with his job, he could have afforded an ASIC...

[Ron~Popeil]

So much for unknown percentage of hashing power. 

[franky1]

Hmm, can't find the hashing power for the supercomputer, anyone have an idea?

Im sure with his job, he could have afforded an ASIC...

the super computer was mining off hundreds of CPU's.. for stuff like genes research CPU power is great. but using all the CPU's for bitcoin mining was not economical. these days a single ASIC is more hash power efficient then 10,000 CPU's

[Bit_Happy]

The professor is, or acted like, an idiot.

The professor is going to need a way to replace all that lost income:
His next plan is to launch a great new alt coin.  

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The professor is, or acted like, an idiot.

The professor is going to need a way to replace all that lost income:
His next plan is to launch a great new alt coin.  

ProfCoin comes to mind, designed for professors who've been sacked. Now, SackCoin comes to mind.

[Ron~Popeil]

Why did I laugh so hard at this?

i was thinking the same. probably because professors are looked at as esteemed people, and the guy who did this is just LOL.

My wife is a professor. You would be shocked to see how different some of our friends in academia are from their on campus personality. I have been to wilder parties with academics than I ever saw in college.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

How come nobody mentioned dogecoin that was mentioned in the article linked in the OP?: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/13774/government-bans-professor-mining-bitcoin-supercomputer/

History Repeats Itself

This may or may not have been the first time a supercomputer was misused to mine for Cryptocurrency. Theodore R. Delwiche reported on February 20, 2014 in The Harvard Crimson that “Harvard Research Computing Resources Misused for ‘Dogecoin’ Mining Operation:”

“A member of the Harvard community was stripped of his or her access to the University’s research computing facilities last week after setting up a “dogecoin” mining operation using a Harvard research network, according to an internal email circulated by Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Computing officials.”

[Elwar]

lol...

I may or may not have used government computers under my control to mine bitcoins.

[Bit_Happy]

We now have proof that US Gov't computers are mining Bitcoin.
Let's make sure the Federal Reserve doesn't influence the Bitcoin Foundation to change the block rewards.